Multiple conductor wire harnesses in aircraft, for example, are presently interconnected by means of insulated structures called "backshells" and/or "wiring integration units". Present day backshells are bulky and relatively heavy structures which require one-to-one conductor connections between the inlet and outlet portions of the backshell. These backshells also do not provide efficient conductor-to-conductor EMI shielding, inside of the backshell, since the non-shielded conductors extend within the backshell from the inlet to the outlet. Excessive cross-talk or inter-conductor noise can thus occur within the backshells of the prior art, especially with high power transmission lines.
Since the wire harnesses have an outer bundle EMI shield which insulates the entire conductor bundle, and inner individual conductor EMI shields, both of which must be stripped and grounded before the conductor wires enter the backshell, the unshielded wires will necessarily be vulnerable to EMI noise inside of the backshell although they will be shielded by the backshell from ambient surroundings. Conductors which must be protected from noise of any kind thus cannot be interconnected by the prior art back-shells, as they exist at the present time. The prior art backshells are also lengthy, and increase in length the more conductors are fed into them.